General SEPlib features

Although SEPlib currently consists of over 100 different programs, they share many common features. First of all, by convention SEPlib programs start with a Capital Letter. More importantly, most SEPlib programs are ``filters''; they read from standard input and write to standard output:

Prog < input   > output

Complex functions are created by joining filters with pipes:

Prog1 < in | Prog2 | Prog3 > out

We will use the SEPlib program ``Wiggle'' to demonstrate some basic SEPlib-program properties. ``Wiggle'' is just a simple program that converts raw data into wiggle traces, but it is used a lot because people are usually curious to see what they have done to their data.

Try typing:

Wiggle

You should get a couple of screens' worth of documentation. This is called ``self documentation'': run the program without arguments, input, or output, and it will display a brief documentation summary. Almost all SEPlib programs will self document, which is good because very few of them have real manual pages.

If you get an error message doc(): No such file or directory, complain to the person who installed SEPlib at your site! If you don't feel like complaining (perhaps because you are that person) and you know where the SEPlib source is installed, you can tell SEPlib programs an alternate place to look for their source by setting the environment variable SEP_DOC_PATH. See the ``Basic troubleshooting'' Appendix.